Joel 2:23-32

I mentioned last week that this series, Bloom Where You are Planted, is one that I consider to be very special. Many people, Christians among them, are caught and trapped in life. I went to college to be a doctor. The college cleverly put me in courses that helped me discern that my skills were not medical ones. I had a biology course where we had to study genetics and we were given fruit flies to mate, some with long wings and others with short wings and some with red bodies and some with black bodies. I looked on these fruit flies as my first patients. First I had to prepare their food, the agar that they need to live. My first batch was a little short of water, but I could still cut it with my finger nail. Tragically, the fruit fly babies could not and they starved. But every good doctor buries their mistakes, right? So I tried again, but this time I doubled the water. I wasn’t going to make that mistake twice. Tragically, they drowned.

 It was at this point that I needed this sermon series. My confidence was shaken. I was singlehandedly reducing the insect population of the university. The fruit flies themselves viewed me with increasing concern. So I doubled measured everything for the third mixture of agar. It seemed perfect, but I wanted to check it twice, so I felt with my hands for the fruit fly cage and unfortunately only grabbed the top half. I think its fair to say that the long winged ones escaped faster than the others by my observations.

 So we get stuck in life at times because we tried our best and made wrong choices. At that point we can either sit down and mourn or find a way to deal with it. An awful lot of people just find a way to deal with it. Vacations become more important. Lunch becomes more important. Breaks at the water cooler become more important. But that is not a life that will delight or satisfy. It is not where God wants you to be.

 I suppose the most harsh situation is where you have made the right choices and you are where God wants you to be and it is a place of exile. Many of us have faced the difficult decision of leaving the country in which we are born. The reasons may be exemplary and correct. You may be providing better for your family in New York. Perhaps you are able to earn enough to support a church or family at home. Some people even face threat or violence if they do not make the change. And yet any change of this magnitude makes us feel in exile, like we gave up part of ourselves and perhaps have not yet found the solution that we imagined.

 I was speaking last night at the Singavarapu thanksgiving celebration and reflecting that the world needs Christians now who dedicate their lives to bring peace where there is violence. I hope there are young people here who are willing to live in exile that the gospel may embrace all peoples. The peace that we enjoy should be everyone’s inalienable human right. These rights are given by God, not conferred by human law. But living out and preaching these glad tidings may require Elijahs worn out in God’s service and Ruths willing to leave home and live far away and Abrahams willing to set out on journeys whose termination they do not yet know.

 If God is speaking to your heart about blooming where you are planted, then today we conclude this series by examining the role of the Holy Spirit. God blesses us with love and justice, and crowns that blessing with power. We will think how to use our identity in Christ and the power of God to bloom where we are planted.

 ‘I will repay you for the years of the locust.’ Perhaps there are no sweeter words in the Bible. I referred at the beginning of this sermon to my own first exploration in college. I did not mention that two years after that of discouragement as I gradually gave up my vision for medicine and wondered what else to do with my life. If I sound understanding about the amount of time it takes to learn to bloom in exile, its because I’m one of the slowest bloomers myself that I know about.

 God is telling an agricultural people that the Lord knows that sometimes the locusts come in life. They seem to destroy the whole crop. You look at the field after they finish and wonder if you should just abandon the farm and leave. And then you realize that you don’t have a visa and the field was your income anyway. Exile gives the feeling of hopelessness. And now God says, I will restore what the locust stole.

 People, you and I look at our lives as four score and 10. That means 90 years. Someone pushes go at the beginning of our lives and then we scurry around like bees, hoping that we will not get injured or sick or discouraged, make our mark, find our success, and be able to relax at age 67 if social security doesn’t end and just enjoy it all until the clock runs out. We exaggerate the impact of the locust. God offers us eternal life. In God’s perspective, these grains of sand in an hourglass that you call life are just the prelude. We are in the time of preparation for the success and glory of eternal life. As the Irish say, its going to be a grand time altogether.

 In April, I was in Washington for the immigration protest of pastors. There may have been 100 pastors there from around the nation. They asked a group of us to stand on the stage for a visible sign. I was glad to do so and there were 11 cameras there from national media. I was not displeased to see that I was right in the center. I had an urge to wave and shout ‘Hi Mom.’ Next to me was an older man and I had no idea who he was, except that he was wrapped up in a scarf. To my surprise, he was suddenly asked to speak and I was immediately on his left as he spoke. He compared the immigration effort to the work he had done for civil rights and I realized that he must have been a partner of Martin Luther King. It turns out he was. His name is Rev. James Lawson.

 I came back and by heavenly coincidence started to read ‘The Children’ by David Halberstam. It is partially the story of Jim Lawson and how his Christian theology of non violence became the base for so much of the success of the civil rights movement. If you are in exile, I cannot recommend too highly this book.

 It seems to me that there are three parts to coming out of exile, experiencing the love of God, believing in the good future that God intends, and accepting the power of the Holy Spirit to succeed.

 Jim Lawson spent a year with Gandhi before the civil rights movement started and spent another year in prison for not going into the army for the Korean War. In prison, he relates one moment where the power of the Holy Spirit came down and delivered. He was going to be raped in prison and he even wondered if he should give up his beliefs in non violence. On the night that seemed most likely, he went to bed in great distress. And suddenly he felt as though the Lord were in the cell with him, assuring him again of God’s love and saying that the power of God would be there regardless of the violence of others. Nothing happened that night and no threats were repeated the next day. He learned later that another prisoner who was very violent put out the word that anyone who attacked him would have to face two people instead of one.

 I will pour out my spirit. Verse 28 There are times in life where the only thing that saves you is your identity in Christ, your belief in God’s good future, and the power of the poured out spirit.

 Jim Lawson spent considerable time in Nashville, training students in non violence before the sit ins began. And the first part of the training is to seek an experience of grace so that you know you are loved by God. If you are struggling and life isn’t working, you should be in church every Sunday to make sure you are certain in your identity. You need to be sure you are loved by God. Too many Christians live by rule alone and have never heard God’s spirit saying in their heart, you are loved, you are loved, you are loved by God.

 When we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God loves us, it gives a confidence in living life. It makes exile just the place of the moment, not a prison for the future. We can bloom because we know that we are not forgotten. You have seen those T shirt gifts, ‘Someone in California loves me’? And then there are the ones, ‘They went to California and all I got was this T shirt.’ We need signs that say, ‘I know God loves me.’

 People were able to accept the vulnerability of a sit in at a lunch counter, and the attacks at protests because they knew so well that God loves them. Do you?

 Joel includes the vision of God’s good future. People worked for civil rights because they accepted that it was God’s promise to be claimed. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. Verse 26..

 And then you need the poured out Spirit. In the 800 pages of the book, ‘The Children’ it is a chronicle of people marching, praying, and working without guns. They faced the violence of the Klan, the corruption of government, and the hatred of monied people, and shamefully even the abuse of the Bible and they still prevailed. They did not prevail in their own strength but in that God pours out the Spirit of the Lord when you attempt a holy action. You have to take a risk.

 So let me conclude with an inventory for you. First, can you truly say that God has touched your heart and you are sure that you are forgiven and loved? If you need that experience, then the altar is open for prayer. Come and ask God today. Secondly, do you embrace the promises of God. Can you turn from the despair of what is and what has been? How much is your soul scarred from the years of the locust? Young people, are you willing to believe in a world that you have not yet experienced? As this generation leaves the world damaged, can you be part of a new mission group called by God to be agents of reconciliation? Do we have future pastors, missionaries, teachers, doctors, who will dedicate their lives and careers to making a difference? I invite you to come to the altar if you want anointing to participate in the promises of God.

 And lastly, are you willing to move forward and expect the Spirit of the Lord to be poured out? Are you willing to act this month and expect that God will use your gifts, this moment, your life to make a difference?

 As the choir leads us into our prayer song, the altar is open. Accept the quiet voice of God’s spirit this morning and come.